Weed war: The fight to get high

Local patients push for new laws. Will Wis. be 19th state to legalize?

8:39 PM,
Jan. 13, 2013

Eric Orcutt of Tomahawk suffers from debilitating osteoarthritis and other ailments that he has used marijuana to treat. He and hundreds of other advocates will rally in Madison Tuesday, hoping to persuade lawmakers to reintroduce legalization legislation.

Written by

Shereen Skola
Daily Herald Media

Only two things can ease the near-constant pain from osteoarthritis that Tomahawk's Eric Orcutt suffers through every day: morphine and marijuana.

To get one, he had to promise to give up the other, and when he failed to keep that promise, he faced a harsh truth. He lost his doctor-prescribed medication and suddenly needed to choose between living with debilitating daily pain or breaking the law to get the other drug that can help him.

The 36-year-old Air Force veteran and Nicolet College student suffers not just from arthritis but also post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic ...